Mad Chatter: The Big 12 Is Foolish To Expand Beyond 10

[Drew]

Mad Chatter: The Big 12 is foolish to expand beyond 10; the wonder of Draymond Green; Alex Gordon's slump

"Eventually, everyone is going to realize that conferences are too big, right? It’s asinine for West Virginia and Texas Tech to be in the same league, for Miami and Syracuse to be in the same league, for Missouri and Florida to be in the same league. It’s so much better for teams to go back to their neighborhoods.

If the Big Ten wants to have 16 teams, fine. But they should function as two eight-team conferences, like baseball’s National and American Leagues. Share a conference network, if you must. But stop ignoring geography.

The only reasons that major conferences expanded were A) ego; and B) money. The networks and schools will eventually figure out that you don’t need to be in a 14-team conference to make the same amount of cash per school as an eight-team league. And fans will eventually figure out that, you know what, this competition thing is more fun when we actually know the guys on the other team.

The Big 12 catches a lot of flak for its disorganization. Rightfully so. But the league, in every sport but football, has a superior model to just about every peer. And yet the Big 12 is going to throw it away because expansion boosts their chances of a playoff bid by 10-15 percent? That's absurd.

What are you gonna do, create a Big 12 Northeast Division with Cincinnati, UConn, West Virginia, Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State? Ugh. Are you really going to tell Oklahoma, "Sorry, we know you love going to Allen Fieldhouse a few hours up the road, but we need somebody to play at Central Florida."

Smaller is better. Smaller will always be better. May administrators recognize this before the Big 12 stretches from Morgantown to Boise."

 

[Huskyforlife]

lol

 

[DoctorWho85]

Another clueless writer that doesn't understand anything about the college landscape. Geography went out the window once the TV dollars started to get into the billion dollar range. Now it wasn't about improving the conference competition to get better rankings at the end of the season, it was merely improve their market share and the number of TV sets/eyeballs their games could reach. If they wanted it to make sense then, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Louisville would have never been invited to the ACC or Rutgers and Maryland would never have been invited to the B1G

 

[HuskyHawk]

Mad Chatter: The Big 12 is foolish to expand beyond 10; the wonder of Draymond Green; Alex Gordon's slump

"Eventually, everyone is going to realize that conferences are too big, right? It’s asinine for West Virginia and Texas Tech to be in the same league, for Miami and Syracuse to be in the same league, for Missouri and Florida to be in the same league. It’s so much better for teams to go back to their neighborhoods.

If the Big Ten wants to have 16 teams, fine. But they should function as two eight-team conferences, like baseball’s National and American Leagues. Share a conference network, if you must. But stop ignoring geography.

The only reasons that major conferences expanded were A) ego; and B) money. The networks and schools will eventually figure out that you don’t need to be in a 14-team conference to make the same amount of cash per school as an eight-team league. And fans will eventually figure out that, you know what, this competition thing is more fun when we actually know the guys on the other team.

The Big 12 catches a lot of flak for its disorganization. Rightfully so. But the league, in every sport but football, has a superior model to just about every peer. And yet the Big 12 is going to throw it away because expansion boosts their chances of a playoff bid by 10-15 percent? That's absurd.

What are you gonna do, create a Big 12 Northeast Division with Cincinnati, UConn, West Virginia, Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State? Ugh. Are you really going to tell Oklahoma, "Sorry, we know you love going to Allen Fieldhouse a few hours up the road, but we need somebody to play at Central Florida."

Smaller is better. Smaller will always be better. May administrators recognize this before the Big 12 stretches from Morgantown to Boise."

Nostalgia. He's not wrong. It is how it should be. More conferences, none bigger than 10. All with local rivals. It's not going back to that anytime soon.

 

[NYUConn]

The writer also probably believes that the internet is a fad and that eventually smart phones will be turned in and we'll return to a 40 hr, 9-5 work week.

 

[djct1999]

Very insightful. I agree, if the Big12 wants to dissolve in six years and earn 30 mil less on average annually until then it absolutely should stay at 10.

 

[06029]

Another clueless writer that doesn't understand anything about the college landscape. Geography went out the window once the TV dollars started to get into the billion dollar range. Now it wasn't about improving the conference competition to get better rankings at the end of the season, it was merely improve their market share and the number of TV sets/eyeballs their games could reach. If they wanted it to make sense then, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Louisville would have never been invited to the ACC or Rutgers and Maryland would never have been invited to the B1G

He is not necessarily wrong in the statement that if you have a 16+ team conference, you end up with two 8+ team divisions that share a network. It is essentially two old conferences functioning as one sharing resources, network and money. That gets you back to the regionalism he wants to a certain degree. There also comes a point of diminishing returns on conference size which is why the teams that actually can move the needle for the SEC and B1G is a very small pool and does not include any non-P5 schools.

 

[DoctorWho85]

He is not necessarily wrong in the statement that if you have a 16+ team conference, you end up with two 8+ team divisions that share a network. It is essentially two old conferences functioning as one sharing resources, network and money. That gets you back to the regionalism he wants to a certain degree. There also comes a point of diminishing returns on conference size which is why the teams that actually can move the needle for the SEC and B1G is a very small pool and does not include any non-P5 schools.

I'll admit that is a great idea. I always thought it was going to be the 4 team pods and run the conference like the NFL does. I think both would be viable to keep travel cost down and still keep a lot of the local rivalries.

 

[UCONN in OKC]

Mad Chatter: The Big 12 is foolish to expand beyond 10; the wonder of Draymond Green; Alex Gordon's slump

"Eventually, everyone is going to realize that conferences are too big, right? It’s asinine for West Virginia and Texas Tech to be in the same league, for Miami and Syracuse to be in the same league, for Missouri and Florida to be in the same league. It’s so much better for teams to go back to their neighborhoods.

If the Big Ten wants to have 16 teams, fine. But they should function as two eight-team conferences, like baseball’s National and American Leagues. Share a conference network, if you must. But stop ignoring geography.

The only reasons that major conferences expanded were A) ego; and B) money. The networks and schools will eventually figure out that you don’t need to be in a 14-team conference to make the same amount of cash per school as an eight-team league. And fans will eventually figure out that, you know what, this competition thing is more fun when we actually know the guys on the other team.

The Big 12 catches a lot of flak for its disorganization. Rightfully so. But the league, in every sport but football, has a superior model to just about every peer. And yet the Big 12 is going to throw it away because expansion boosts their chances of a playoff bid by 10-15 percent? That's absurd.

What are you gonna do, create a Big 12 Northeast Division with Cincinnati, UConn, West Virginia, Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State? Ugh. Are you really going to tell Oklahoma, "Sorry, we know you love going to Allen Fieldhouse a few hours up the road, but we need somebody to play at Central Florida."

Smaller is better. Smaller will always be better. May administrators recognize this before the Big 12 stretches from Morgantown to Boise."

The thing that gets me with all these geography stuff is that they still think this is the 18 century of horse and mules... This is the 20th century we have planes, cars and trains. what used to be a 16 to 24 hr drive is a 3 to 6 hr flight.... would be almost the same as UCONN taking the bus to play the orange....
Distance and time to get to the game for the players are not as bad it used to be. Now for us fan is different who want to travel, but we could see away game in the house nice, hence the TV NETWORK is important get to see hours of comercials

 

[amory]

Sports writers in P5 country just don't seem to get it when it comes to conference realignment.

When they write articles like this it's like hearing old money trust fund kids giving their opinion on an issue that they only became aware of in the last 20 minutes. They don't even realize how they got so fat and happy.

 

[hardcorehusky]

I actually think these writers hate to travel. In their world, they would rather keep going to the same old haunts in Ames, Waco and Lubbock then go to Orlando, Hartford or Cinnci!! Curmudgeons!!!